Today in History for June 12 (text+video)

Today is Thursday, June 12, the 163rd day of 2014. There are 202 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 12, 1939, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated in Cooperstown, New York.

On this date:

In 1776, Virginia’s colonial legislature became the first to adopt a Bill of Rights.

In 1898, Philippine nationalists declared independence from Spain.

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In 1920, the Republican national convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Warren G. Harding for president on the tenth ballot; Calvin Coolidge was nominated for vice president.

In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge was nominated for a term of office in his own right at the Republican national convention in Cleveland. (Coolidge had become president in 1923 upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding.)

In 1942, Anne Frank, a German-born Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, received a diary for her 13th birthday, less than a month before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis.

In 1956, the Flag of the United States Army was officially adopted under an executive order signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, 37, was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. (In 1994, Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of murdering Evers and sentenced to life in prison; he died in 2001.) One of Hollywood’s most notoriously expensive productions, “Cleopatra,” starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison, opened in New York.

In 1964, South African black nationalist Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison along with seven other people, including Walter Sisulu, for committing sabotage against the apartheid regime (all were eventually released, Mandela in 1990).

In 1967, the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon arrived in Cairo, Egypt, at the beginning of a Middle East tour.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, publicly challenged Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

In 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were slashed to death outside her Los Angeles home. (O.J. Simpson was later acquitted of the killings in a criminal trial, but was eventually held liable in a civil action.) Boeing’s new 777 jetliner went on its first test flight.

Ten years ago: Gunmen firing from a car killed Iraq’s deputy foreign minister (Bassam Salih Kubba). Suspected militants killed an American in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Former President Ronald Reagan’s body was sealed inside a tomb at his presidential library in Simi Valley, California, following a week of mourning and remembrance by world leaders and regular Americans.

Five years ago: U.S. television stations ended analog broadcasts in favor of digital transmission. Congress approved legislation banning “light” or candy-flavored cigarettes and requiring tobacco companies to make bigger warning labels and run fewer ads. The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea for its second nuclear test. The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 to win the Stanley Cup in Game 7.

One year ago: The director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, vigorously defended once-secret surveillance programs before the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying that collecting Americans’ phone records and tapping into their Internet activity had disrupted dozens of terrorist attacks. Ariel Castro, accused of holding three women captive in his Cleveland home for about a decade, pleaded not guilty to hundreds of rape and kidnapping charges. (Castro was later sentenced to life plus 1,000 years and soon after committed suicide in prison.) NASCAR driver Jason Leffler, 37, died after an accident at a dirt car event at Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey.

Thought for Today:

“A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.” — Pearl Bailey, American entertainer (1918-1990).